The Pattie Gentile Show as heard on WADK Radio Ep 32

Pattie Gentile's "Fighting the Good Fight Podcast" is now a weekly radio program! Heard Saturday evening's at 6 and again Sunday morning at 10 at www.wadk.com or 1540AM Newport RI.

Host Patricia Gentile continues "Defending Taxpayers & Solving Their Tax Problems". With this new format, The Pattie Gentile Show will be your weekly appointment with Host Pattie Gentile & her guest experts as they discuss the latest tax news, issues and cutting-edge strategies to resolve and prevent tax problems.

Here on episode 32, we welcome back Steven Klitzner, a Miami tax attorney whose practice focuses exclusively on solving IRS problems and tax debt issues throughout Florida.

Enjoy and tune in on WADK.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

This is Patricia Gentile, founder of New England Tax Relief and host of the Patty Gentile Show. A client once wrote me, quote, my husband and I found ourselves in debt to the IRS for $167,000. I had contacted a company that said they would help. After I paid them $6,000, I found out that they took my money and ran. I was desperate and searched for a local tax attorney and found Patricia. She was able to get our tax debt reduced to $36,000. End quote. The moral of that story is that you really need to be able to trust the person you choose to represent you with the IRS. With over 43 years of combined experience as a taxpayer, defense attorney, and CPA, I have successfully resolved hundreds of difficult IRS situations. One-on-one, personal attention is the hallmark of my representation, and my strategies are customized to your specific needs to completely resolve your IRS issues. So go to my website, New EnglandTaxrelief.com, and schedule a free telephone consultation or call me at 1-800-880-8388, where a live person will always answer and take your message 24-7. Welcome everyone to the Patty Gentile Show. And in studio with me, as always, is my producer John Ayanuzzi. I just want to mention that today's show theme is going to be cause for concern. I looked at what I was presenting in our next segment after the commercial and at the end, the last segment, my coaching corner today, as well as who our guest is and what he's going to present. And that's what showed up for me, that it seemed like a cause for concern theme today. So you definitely don't want to miss us. I thought it was really good information. In the meantime, John and I like to open the show with notable dates. Monday, May 4th was Intergalactic Star Wars Day. If anybody's a fan like I am since 1977, when the first Star Wars movie came out, may the fourth be with you. So are you a fan, John?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

So my dad had an appliance store. And growing up, you know, in the front house was of his store were washing machines and microwaves and ranges stove, but in the back were the TVs.

SPEAKER_06 3:00

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Screen screen TV. Now back in the 70s and 80s, these were this was new technology. And I'll never forget on Laserdisc, which by the way was about as big as your head.

SPEAKER_06 3:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Not a CD or a DVD. This was a laser disc.

SPEAKER_06 3:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

He had uh Return of the Jedi, which I watched ad nauseum, you know, I an infinite amount of times in the back of the store. And I felt like I had my own movie theater. And then to top it off, my uncle out on the east end of Long Island had a business with arcade machines. So we had the Star Wars game.

SPEAKER_07 3:41

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Like the big, you know, like the arcade game. We used to have to open it up and jiggle the part where the quarters would go in to make it work. So, yes, growing up, I was a huge Star Wars fan, you know, and through my dad and my uncle, I feel like I really got to experience it, maybe even more so than some of my friends.

SPEAKER_07 4:00

Well, with an uncle who ran an arcade.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Well, he was I, you know, this this could be an episode in and of itself. Back in the days, that was run by the mob because it was a cash business.

SPEAKER_07 4:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

He drove the trucks that would drop off the machines. Right. At different arcades in Suffolk County on Long Island.

SPEAKER_07 4:23

And all I can think of is an innocent thing, such as arcades, pinball, Star Wars games, and asteroids and all that. You talk about the mob being invited.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Anything where cash is exchanged, you know, back then it was uh high times.

SPEAKER_07 4:45

Oh my god. Another another uh notable on May 4th was National Self-employed day. And it's celebrated annually to honor the I'm reading here, the bravery, risks, and contributions of entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small business owners. And these it's a day to recognize those who create their own opportunities, supporting themselves, their families, and the economy. Maybe that's what was going on in the arcade days there.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Well, it's actually more to the story that you tell about hanging your shingle.

SPEAKER_07 5:25

Right. My story of how I grew up and my family was self-employed, they had their own businesses. Uh, grandfather, my dad, uncles, and my aunt, and uh her husband. They had several different businesses within the family. My father always said to me, you know, you get your education, you get uh you learn your your profession, and then you go and hang your own shingle. And that's what that's what I've always called that. We cannot go by this show without acknowledging that Sunday, May 10th, is Mother's Day. And when I think of mothers, I just don't think of biological mothers. There is so much maternal instinct in this world, which is beautiful, and you can be a stepmother, you can have your pets, and they are your children to you. John, what is your tradition of honoring your mom, your mother-in-law, and helping your daughter uh support and honor your your wife?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

I have to tell you that having a child in elementary school makes this a lot easier because they come home right with stuff that they've made. And let's face it, nothing's better than a homemade gift from a six-year-old, you know?

SPEAKER_07 7:04

That's right. I have uh we've kept them for all our kids, and now we're keeping them from our grandkids. So those gifts, those cards, those homemade cards, homemade Christmas gifts, uh, you you name it. It's great. It's great to pull them out in years later, uh, for sure. Uh, we also I want to read a comment that here's our show telephone number to text when we put out a poll question, your response, or if you have a tax or business question, or if you just have a comment, and I definitely want to get this comment read here. And a listener in the 914 area code actually texted me and said, caught the Jim Campbell show. Wow, bought his book, what a story! Thank you for such interesting subjects. Love W A D K. And I thank this person very much for listening. And I pass this message on to Jim Campbell. If anyone wants to listen to that episode, it's episode 25 on my podcast, Fighting the Good Fight with Patricia Gentile. You can find it wherever you download your podcast, and you can also find it on my podcast page of my website, New England Taxrelief.com, and you can click on that. So shout out to Jim Campbell uh acknowledging his book here, Madoff Talks, which was turned into a Netflix uh movie, made off Monster of Wall Street, and Jim's business talk show, Business Talk with Jim Campbell, is on daily from 1 to 2 p.m. right here on WADK, Monday through Friday. And so I'll turn this over to you, John, before we come up to the commercial about any shout-outs to our new downloaders.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

We appreciate everyone that listens, but boy, we've seen such a nice response from folks in a place that I didn't was unfamiliar with called Ashburn, Virginia. And it's kind of on the border of Pennsylvania and Stones Throw from Philly, and we see uh just a wonderful group of listeners from there. Speaking of PA, we have Levittown, Pennsylvania, right? And then finally Boise, Idaho, which by the way, I've done a show with uh real estate agents. This is a burgeoning, booming area of the country.

SPEAKER_07 9:43

I I've heard that for quite some time, actually.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, Idaho. So welcome to everybody, and also I don't want to say the word out loud, but I know a lot of people stream the show on A-L-E-X-A. And uh if you say it, it'll turn the this show off if they're streaming it. But we appreciate listeners tuning in on their Amazon Echo, which is a new device that's been detected by our stats.

SPEAKER_07 10:12

This is all very exciting. Thank you to the new listeners wherever you're getting this show from, like you said, A-L-E-X-A. Well, because if we say it, they may turn off.

SPEAKER_06 10:26

We don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_07 10:27

And thank you, Ashburn, Virginia. We're very excited to see all the popularity in that area. Thank you so much. So, going into the break now, when we come back, I'm going to cover different items that I believe are a cause for concern because they are cases that I'm working with, clients I'm working with out now, and I want to bring that to the forefront. Our guest today in our third segment is Steve Klitzner, and he's an attorney from Miami who's going to pull back the curtain on the national tax relief companies. I think you want to hear this as a part of the cause for concern. And lastly, in our last segment, which I like to call my coaching segment, giving tips and strategies to taxpayers and tax professionals, I'm going to discuss the that there's tens of millions of taxpayers right now that may be eligible for significant tax refunds if they act by July 10th. Very important to hear that. So come on back!

SPEAKER_02 12:13

I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 12:15

Welcome back, everyone, to the Patty Gentiles show. And in this segment, I'm going to discuss a few different items that I believe are problematic for taxpayers and a cause for concern. The first item I ran into recently that's actually a part of a United States tax court case that I'm currently representing the taxpayer due to an audit examination determination that we are disputing. But one of the things I noticed was that the taxpayer, my client's CPA, who prepared the one of the actually both of the years that are that were audited and we are disputing the determination on, showed on the schedule C of my clients' form 1040 on line one, gross receipts, the number and amount for both tax years that was less than the total of the forms 1099-NEC, which stands for non-employee compensation. I just want to let you know if you don't think you have all the forms 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC, which is abbreviation for miscellaneous, or the form 1099-K, which taxpayers will get when their businesses accept credit and debit cards. And if you're unsure that you have all of these, or if you're a tax professional representing or supporting a client with tax problems, you want to actually retrieve from the IRS the wage and income transcript either under the EIN number of the entity or under your social security number, whichever number identifies that you associate with your business form 1099s. You need to see what the IRS has on record because by this CPA not um doing a check, uh an additional check behind the scenes with the IRS and getting this uh my client now to wage an income transcript from the IRS, that was an automatic red flag and kicked out the return for an examination right there. The IRS is looking for at least that your gross receipts at a minimum on line one of your entity tax return or your Schedule C, form 1040, that the very first line on those returns or forms that's for gross receipts is at least equal to the total of 1099 your business has received. Now that's not all you should put there. Of course, you're obligated to report all earned income that's come in through your business, but you definitely want to avoid an audit or an examination automatically happening. The return will get kicked out because the total receipts or total revenue doesn't even match the totals of the form 1099s associated with that business. The next item I wanted to mention is back taxes if you owe back taxes, and you are obligated to pay estimated income taxes. Once again, this is self-employed uh individuals, and and like I mentioned in the first segment, we were celebrating on May 4th self-employed day. And the part of being self-employed is that you need to submit during the course of the tax year, any tax year, estimated tax payments to the federal government, as well as if you have a state income tax obligation as well. So you need to project and estimate what would be your tax in 2026, for example, and divide that by four quarters and pay those in. And the due dates are April 15th, June 15th, which is coming up, September 15th, and then the last quarter due date is January 15th of 2027 for the 2026 year. I wanted to mention that in a recent consultation I had with a client is that they were using current income, current money on it. Both are self-employed businesses. They were using the current money to pay the back taxes. They arranged installment agreement plans with the IRS and the state that they're they have to pay income taxes with, the State Department of Revenue. And so they were using all this current income to pay back taxes and didn't have enough to pay current taxes, current estimated tax payments. This becomes a snowball effect. And by the time they uh spoke with me, they owe two to three tax years, and they still need to pay 2026 estimated tax payments. So my rule is that if there's just so much money to go around, as I say, you always want to stay current. Take current income, pay your current estimated tax payments, and arrange those payment plans of the previous years. Do not take the money that you need to be in current compliance to pay the back tax years. It's actually required by both the IRS and State Department of Revenues that you show current tax compliance because they want you to break this behavior pattern of not paying estimated tax payments. And it's part of the terms and conditions of a current installment agreement, and they could terminate your installment agreement on the back taxes if you're not in current tax compliance. Leading up to our next segment and our guest, attorney Steve Klitzner out of Miami, Florida, who's going to pull back the curtain on national tax relief companies. I think it's very important that you hear about them so that you can distinguish them from tax resolution professionals such as myself. I'm both a tax attorney, taxpayer defense attorney, and CPA. There are CPAs and enrolled agents, IRS certified enrolled agents, that actually specialize in taxpayer resolution services. And I want you to be able to understand the difference between those advertisements on TV and radio and companies that call themselves national tax relief companies. So make sure you come on back and listen to Steve Glinsner, who actually called a couple of these firms and said he was a taxpayer with tax problems, and you want to hear his story. So come on back. This is the Patty Gentile Show. And as I mentioned before the break, our guest today is attorney Steve Glitzner from he's an attorney out of is it Miami, Florida?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

I am.

SPEAKER_07 21:33

Yeah. But Steve, what I mentioned is that you were going to pull back the curtain for us uh and discuss what you're aware of that of the national tax relief firms out there that we all hear advertisements on the radio and on the television.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Well, you know, Patty, I even though we're not on video, I've got My face covered. I have to change my voice for this. This is undercover. I shouldn't even have given my name. I was supposed to talk with a garbled voice. Let me tell you two stories about my interactions with these national companies. Several years ago, I called them just to find out what's going to happen when I say certain things. So I called in and I gave them a scenario. And under the scenario I gave them, I wasn't eligible for an offering compromise. The IRS just doesn't make deals with people who call, because if you could just call the IRS and everybody could settle their case, nobody would ever pay their taxes on time. They would just wait a few years. If the IRS bothered them, they say, Oh, here's a deal, and I'll thank you for letting me keep this money all these years, interest and penalty free. So the information though I gave the sales guy, I didn't qualify for an offering compromise. I made way too much. I had too much in assets. I didn't owe enough. And he gave me a fee, and I told him I'd think about it. I don't remember what the fee was. And then I get a call back from his supervisor like the next day. And because he liked me, he lowered the fee. And he lowered it a couple of times until I finally told him no. And when I said, what about somebody local? He said, Well, those people don't know how to do this. You call an attorney, he doesn't know how to handle this. And he is right, except if you call an attorney, an enrolled agent, a CPA, that actually does know how to represent people who have IRS problems.

SPEAKER_06 23:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

And then the second time I called, it was a few years ago. I was presenting at one of my networking organizations, and I thought, wouldn't it be great if I had these people on the phone and they could hear how they lie to people? I thought it would be a great presentation. But the presentation was at like 7:30 a.m. So like a week before, I called just to see if they're even open. And I use star 67, so they can't call me back, you know, the old star 67.

SPEAKER_07 24:13

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

And uh I got like voicemail, or you know, they'll call me back as soon. And I, of course, didn't leave a message. Wouldn't you know they're able to crack through the star 67? I started getting calls back. Whoa. And then after, you know, I would realize who they are, so I wouldn't take the calls. But after a while, when they got frustrated, they sold my name to like these debt companies. So I started getting calls from debt companies saying, we know you owe a lot of money because they figured I had other debt and they could resolve me whatever problems I had with any credit problems I had. But here's the scoop. And and you know, there could be some very reputable companies out there, but many of these national companies really are scams. Because what they do when you call is you're talking to a salesperson, they're getting a commission. They will tell you whatever you want to hear so that you sign up because this is the last time you talk to them. They are not the person helping you resolve the case. Now, the problem with some of these companies is that they spend their money and their resources on the people answering the phone doing the sales. There's nobody in the back room, or certainly not enough people in the back room working on the case. So that's a big concern. Years ago, they would write you a letter saying we can help you. Now they somehow get any phone number you have and they call you saying we can help you. Here's some of the things I think you look for, though. Is there a location? Is there nothing but an 800 number? Can you even find out who runs the business?

SPEAKER_06 26:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Those are some of the things you got to look at. And the other thing is you got to check them out online. Look at ripoffreports.com and any other scam thing. The one thing I'm not a big fan of, this whole Better Business Bureau thing. When you and I were growing up and you heard somebody was somebody say, I'm going to refer you to the Better Business Bureau, everyone shook in their boots. Now it seems that anyone can just sign up for the Better Business Bureau, maybe able to pay them a few bucks too, and they take pretty good care of you. So personally, when I see on a website that someone's A plus with Better Business Bureau, I run the other way. Anyone that cares about that now, I'm concerned about.

SPEAKER_07 26:54

Right, right. That's been my interpretation too. Uh that used to be the gold mark, but that's that's been gone for a few decades now, I think.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, just like attorneys, it used to be Martindale and Hubble. Well, I'll find an attorney through there. Now the more you pay, the higher up you are there. So you know what?

SPEAKER_07 27:16

And you know what? I I went, I Googled consumer reports about national tax relief groups, and right at the very top, and they list, they say our 10 best, they list them, and but right at the very top, in small print, before you start going down the list, they say we're getting a commission from these people. And this is consumer reports, you know. That was another uh uh company that you know they had that gold star.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

There's plenty of practitioners that do work all over the country. I'm in Florida, I do work all over the country, right? But I'm the one actually handling the work. I don't just hand it off, you know, like today you have Joe is working on the case, and you call next week. Where's Joe? Oh, he got a job at the mall. We brought Bob up, he was working in the mail room, he's now your case person handling your case. So you have to be very, very careful about these outfits that claim they can help you. If someone tells you what they can settle your case for when you speak to them on the phone without getting a significant amount of financial information, they're just making it up because it's not how it works with the IRS. It's all based on the numbers. And no one can just give you a number out of thin air and tell you they can settle your case for this without knowing your personal situation.

SPEAKER_07 28:48

I've had clients that uh have retained me after they have paid different ones, and this has gone on for years, uh, different one of these type of scams, uh, national tax relief uh scam firms, and they've paid, they won't do anything for you until they get paid in full. Some of them even would put you on a monthly payment plan, and then when you paid them in full, they start to work for you. And if you've got problems with the IRS, you can't, you know, you can't wait around sometimes like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

But they'll charge you a monthly fee until they resolve the case. Guess who's never resolving the case when you give them that?

SPEAKER_07 29:36

Right? But yeah, they've either never heard from them again after the fee's been paid. But you know what? I didn't even think of that till you said that the ones that keep you on the monthly fee. Oh my god, yeah, it'll never get resolved. Yeah, unless they're legit.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

But uh yeah, and when they break up those companies, then all the people that work there scatter around, open up their own tax resolution firms. You just have to be careful, make sure you're dealing with an attorney, a CPA, an enrolled agent, not a business person running a business that's just trying to make a buck. It doesn't work. You know, if you're gonna go to one of these places that supposedly is the largest or the biggest, you don't want that. You want a somewhere where you've got somebody who's gonna be there working on your case to resolve it, not an employee where they have it's a merry-go-round and it just keeps going and going and everybody keeps changing there.

SPEAKER_06 30:37

Steve Huck.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Well, I was gonna say if someone doesn't sign up with me and retain me and they go to a national firm, it's like in Hamilton. I just say, you'll be back, you'll be back. We tell them, you can, I don't care. If you don't want me to do it, get somebody that does it. Don't go to the national company because you're just gonna be throwing away a lot of money. And I do some radio commercials that basically say, Do you really think somebody 2,000 miles away is gonna handle your IRS case? And you know, you you don't even know who's on it. You don't even know who your real power of attorney is, and it just doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_07 31:16

Yeah. Excellent advice. I think it made it more, you've given given more clarification for our listeners who really need to distinguish these ads and these, you know, these radio and television ads from people like ourselves, professionals like ourselves, who've been doing this for decades and actually represent and resolve taxpayer cases. Uh Steve, how can people get a hold of you and subscribe to your newsletter?

SPEAKER_00 31:45

All right. Well, it's my name's Steve Klitzner, K-L-I-T-Z-N-E-R. I'm an attorney in Miami. I practice all around the country, but I don't have people. I have assistants, of course, but I don't have people that I assign the case to, and then you never hear from me again. I'm the one that's dealing with the IRS. My phone number is 305-682-1118. The website is Florida TaxT A X Solvers.com, and my email is Steve at Florida, spell it out, tax T A X Solvers, S O L V E R S dot com.

SPEAKER_07 32:25

Thank you so much, Steve. I always enjoy when you're on the show.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Be well.

SPEAKER_07 33:11

This is the Patty Gentile show. And in our last segment here, I like to call it my coaching corner, where I provide uh information, tips, strategies all around what's currently going on in with uh tax resolution, taxpayer defense, uh tips. And I want to mention here, I mentioned this at the beginning of the show, that in this segment I'm going to discuss that there are tens of millions of taxpayers right now that may be eligible for significant tax refunds if they act by July 10th. And that's what's very important. These uh what's happened is that these refunds are related to penalties and interest that were assessed during the COVID-19 disaster period, but most will only receive the relief, that relief that I'm talking about here, if you take action by July 10th, 2026. And this issue stems from a recent court decision that I mentioned a few shows ago called Kwang KWONG versus United States, which interpreted the tax code to mean that filing and payment deadlines were automatically postponed for the entire COVID-19 disaster period from January 20th of 2020 through July 10th of 2023. So if you hear July 10th here of 2026 being a deadline date to possibly claim a refund, you're hearing the three-year collection uh not collection statute, excuse me, the three-year statute to claim a refund. If the COVID disaster period ended on July 10th, 2023, and these refunds up uh related to penalties and interest that you may have paid during that period that ended July 10th, 2023 apply to you, you have until July 10th, three years later, 2026, to claim that refund. But if that interpretation in this tax court case ultimately holds many penalties and interest charges assessed during that time may be improper. And the time we're talking about is January 20th of 2020 through July 10th of 2023. And so, what does this mean for taxpayers is that you may be entitled to refunds or abatements of penalties for late filing, late payment, or missed estimated tax payments, and you may also be entitled to adjustments of interest that should not have accrued during that period. But here's the challenge this relief is not automatic. In most cases, taxpayers must file a claim generally using Form 843 by July 10th of 2026 to preserve your rights. And because the law is still being litigated, many taxpayers should consider filing what is called quote unquote a protective claim. Now, even if the final outcome is uncertain on this case, this situation raises serious concerns about fairness. Taxpayers who are informed or have professional representation are far more likely to benefit. And those who are unaware, and this is why I'm bringing it up, especially low and moderate income taxpayers risk losing refunds they are legally entitled to. That undermines key taxpayers' rights. And let me interject here that since we are coming up on the United States celebrating its 250th birthday on July 4th of 2026, and this deadline is July 10th of 2026. It's all the more important that I want to mention that we will be doing a segment every week approaching July 4th and our 250th birthday celebration. We're going to cover each week a taxpayer bill of rights. There are 10 of them, and we're going to cover them. But each one. But going back to this deadline here, this could undermine key taxpayer rights here under the bill of rights. If there are taxpayers who are unaware or uninformed and don't have professional representation if they need help, as well as they need to know, and that's why we're here to inform you that we want to make sure, I want to make sure that your right to be informed, that's one of the taxpayer bill of rights, the right to pay no more than the correct amount of tax, and the right to a fair and just tax system. Those are three of the taxpayer bill of rights that this is why I want to bring this up. That if you feel you have paid penalties and interest on tax during the time period of January 20th, 2020 through July 10th, 2023. And since this Kwon versus United States is still in litigation because it's being appealed, you want to file what is called a protective claim to protect your right to preserve this right if this litigation goes past July 10th of 2026, use form 843. There's practical barriers here, and claims must currently be filed on paper, making this process slower and harder to track and more burdensome for both the taxpayers and the IRS. So the national taxpayer advocate is asking that the IRS and the Treasury act now to address these issues, including raising awareness, but that's why we're here, and considering deadline extensions, exploring automatic relief versus having to preserve your claim on a protective claim here, and enabling possibly electronic filing of these claims, which right now is required on paper. So the bottom line here is simple. This is a major opportunity for taxpayers, but only if you know about it and you act in time and you cannot wait at all. You must file. If you did not pay for them, then you're going to request an abatement instead. So please contact me by scheduling a free complimentary telephone consultation. Go to my website, New England Taxrelief.com, make that phone consultation appointment, or call me at 1-800-880-8388. And until our next show, have a great week.